On Thursday, August 20, 2015 at 6:56:01 AM UTC-5, trader_4 wrote:
On Thursday, August 20, 2015 at 12:07:30 AM UTC-4, Robert Green wrote:
"ceg" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 18 Aug 2015 10:37:55 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/...s-507057219572
http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/...s-of-this-year
On the other hand, a growing number of states are raising speed limits,
and everywhere drivers are distracted by cellphone calls and text
messages. The council estimated in a report this spring that a quarter
of all crashes involve cellphone use. Besides fatal crashes, that
includes injury-only and property damage-only crashes.
If a quarter of all crashes are "related to cellphone use", then
why aren't accident rates going up by a quarter?
You're assuming that all those new purchasers are drivers. I think that's
definitely not the case. Absent that correlation, cell phone sales can
skyrocket, but if they're mostly second lines or phones for non-drivers,
then those sales will have little statistical effect on accident rates.
--
Bobby G.
The other assumption here is that whatever the increase in cell phone
usage has been, that it has to produce a huge, readily observable
effect on the gross accident numbers. That is a false premise.
There are about 11 mil auto accidents
a year in the USA. Suppose the ones caused by cell phone usage over
the past 25 years went from 500 to 50,000. That's certainly "skyrocketing".
But you wouldn't even see it in the noise in the 11 mil a year number,
which the census bureau says is estimated and should be used for year to
year comparison with caution. That doesn't mean that the effect doesn't
exist, that it's not a growing safety problem, that we can't prevent
accidents and loss of life by doing something about it.
Are all the people causing an accident by being distracted by their cellphone admitting to being distracted by their cellphone? How would anyone know unless a law is passed ordering the surrender of cellphones belonging to those involved in an accident for examination by law enforcement? The person being struck could have been driving in a manner that caused the collision. O_o
[8~{} Uncle Curious Monster